White Fang - Chapter 23

Chapter XXIII - The God's Domain

Not only was White Fang adaptable by nature, but he had travelled
much, and knew the meaning and necessity of adjustment. Here, in
Sierra Vista, which was the name of Judge Scott's place, White Fang
quickly began to make himself at home. He had no further serious
trouble with the dogs. They knew more about the ways of the
Southland gods than did he, and in their eyes he had qualified when
he accompanied the gods inside the house. Wolf that he was, and
unprecedented as it was, the gods had sanctioned his presence, and
they, the dogs of the gods, could only recognise this sanction.

Dick, perforce, had to go through a few stiff formalities at first,
after which he calmly accepted White Fang as an addition to the
premises. Had Dick had his way, they would have been good friends.
All but White Fang was averse to friendship. All he asked of other
dogs was to be let alone. His whole life he had kept aloof from
his kind, and he still desired to keep aloof. Dick's overtures
bothered him, so he snarled Dick away. In the north he had learned
the lesson that he must let the master's dogs alone, and he did not
forget that lesson now. But he insisted on his own privacy and
self-seclusion, and so thoroughly ignored Dick that that good-
natured creature finally gave him up and scarcely took as much
interest in him as in the hitching-post near the stable.

Not so with Collie. While she accepted him because it was the
mandate of the gods, that was no reason that she should leave him
in peace. Woven into her being was the memory of countless crimes
he and his had perpetrated against her ancestry. Not in a day nor
a generation were the ravaged sheepfolds to be forgotten. All this
was a spur to her, pricking her to retaliation. She could not fly
in the face of the gods who permitted him, but that did not prevent
her from making life miserable for him in petty ways. A feud, ages
old, was between them, and she, for one, would see to it that he
was reminded.

So Collie took advantage of her sex to pick upon White Fang and
maltreat him. His instinct would not permit him to attack her,
while her persistence would not permit him to ignore her. When she
rushed at him he turned his fur-protected shoulder to her sharp
teeth and walked away stiff-legged and stately. When she forced
him too hard, he was compelled to go about in a circle, his
shoulder presented to her, his head turned from her, and on his
face and in his eyes a patient and bored expression. Sometimes,
however, a nip on his hind-quarters hastened his retreat and made
it anything but stately. But as a rule he managed to maintain a
dignity that was almost solemnity. He ignored her existence
whenever it was possible, and made it a point to keep out of her
way. When he saw or heard her coming, he got up and walked off.

There was much in other matters for White Fang to learn. Life in
the Northland was simplicity itself when compared with the
complicated affairs of Sierra Vista. First of all, he had to learn
the family of the master. In a way he was prepared to do this. As
Mit-sah and Kloo-kooch had belonged to Grey Beaver, sharing his
food, his fire, and his blankets, so now, at Sierra Vista, belonged
to the love-master all the denizens of the house.

But in this matter there was a difference, and many differences.
Sierra Vista was a far vaster affair than the tepee of Grey Beaver.
There were many persons to be considered. There was Judge Scott,
and there was his wife. There were the master's two sisters, Beth
and Mary. There was his wife, Alice, and then there were his
children, Weedon and Maud, toddlers of four and six. There was no
way for anybody to tell him about all these people, and of blood-
ties and relationship he knew nothing whatever and never would be
capable of knowing. Yet he quickly worked it out that all of them
belonged to the master. Then, by observation, whenever opportunity
offered, by study of action, speech, and the very intonations of
the voice, he slowly learned the intimacy and the degree of favour
they enjoyed with the master. And by this ascertained standard,
White Fang treated them accordingly. What was of value to the
master he valued; what was dear to the master was to be cherished
by White Fang and guarded carefully.

Thus it was with the two children. All his life he had disliked
children. He hated and feared their hands. The lessons were not
tender that he had learned of their tyranny and cruelty in the days
of the Indian villages. When Weedon and Maud had first approached
him, he growled warningly and looked malignant. A cuff from the
master and a sharp word had then compelled him to permit their
caresses, though he growled and growled under their tiny hands, and
in the growl there was no crooning note. Later, he observed that
the boy and girl were of great value in the master's eyes. Then it
was that no cuff nor sharp word was necessary before they could pat
him.

Yet White Fang was never effusively affectionate. He yielded to
the master's children with an ill but honest grace, and endured
their fooling as one would endure a painful operation. When he
could no longer endure, he would get up and stalk determinedly away
from them. But after a time, he grew even to like the children.
Still he was not demonstrative. He would not go up to them. On
the other hand, instead of walking away at sight of them, he waited
for them to come to him. And still later, it was noticed that a
pleased light came into his eyes when he saw them approaching, and
that he looked after them with an appearance of curious regret when
they left him for other amusements.

All this was a matter of development, and took time. Next in his
regard, after the children, was Judge Scott. There were two
reasons, possibly, for this. First, he was evidently a valuable
possession of the master's, and next, he was undemonstrative.
White Fang liked to lie at his feet on the wide porch when he read
the newspaper, from time to time favouring White Fang with a look
or a word - untroublesome tokens that he recognised White Fang's
presence and existence. But this was only when the master was not
around. When the master appeared, all other beings ceased to exist
so far as White Fang was concerned.

White Fang allowed all the members of the family to pet him and
make much of him; but he never gave to them what he gave to the
master. No caress of theirs could put the love-croon into his
throat, and, try as they would, they could never persuade him into
snuggling against them. This expression of abandon and surrender,
of absolute trust, he reserved for the master alone. In fact, he
never regarded the members of the family in any other light than
possessions of the love-master.

Also White Fang had early come to differentiate between the family
and the servants of the household. The latter were afraid of him,
while he merely refrained from attacking them. This because he
considered that they were likewise possessions of the master.
Between White Fang and them existed a neutrality and no more. They
cooked for the master and washed the dishes and did other things
just as Matt had done up in the Klondike. They were, in short,
appurtenances of the household.

Outside the household there was even more for White Fang to learn.
The master's domain was wide and complex, yet it had its metes and
bounds. The land itself ceased at the county road. Outside was
the common domain of all gods - the roads and streets. Then inside
other fences were the particular domains of other gods. A myriad
laws governed all these things and determined conduct; yet he did
not know the speech of the gods, nor was there any way for him to
learn save by experience. He obeyed his natural impulses until
they ran him counter to some law. When this had been done a few
times, he learned the law and after that observed it.

But most potent in his education was the cuff of the master's hand,
the censure of the master's voice. Because of White Fang's very
great love, a cuff from the master hurt him far more than any
beating Grey Beaver or Beauty Smith had ever given him. They had
hurt only the flesh of him; beneath the flesh the spirit had still
raged, splendid and invincible. But with the master the cuff was
always too light to hurt the flesh. Yet it went deeper. It was an
expression of the master's disapproval, and White Fang's spirit
wilted under it.

In point of fact, the cuff was rarely administered. The master's
voice was sufficient. By it White Fang knew whether he did right
or not. By it he trimmed his conduct and adjusted his actions. It
was the compass by which he steered and learned to chart the
manners of a new land and life.

In the Northland, the only domesticated animal was the dog. All
other animals lived in the Wild, and were, when not too formidable,
lawful spoil for any dog. All his days White Fang had foraged
among the live things for food. It did not enter his head that in
the Southland it was otherwise. But this he was to learn early in
his residence in Santa Clara Valley. Sauntering around the corner
of the house in the early morning, he came upon a chicken that had
escaped from the chicken-yard. White Fang's natural impulse was to
eat it. A couple of bounds, a flash of teeth and a frightened
squawk, and he had scooped in the adventurous fowl. It was farm-
bred and fat and tender; and White Fang licked his chops and
decided that such fare was good.

Later in the day, he chanced upon another stray chicken near the
stables. One of the grooms ran to the rescue. He did not know
White Fang's breed, so for weapon he took a light buggy-whip. At
the first cut of the whip, White Fang left the chicken for the man.
A club might have stopped White Fang, but not a whip. Silently,
without flinching, he took a second cut in his forward rush, and as
he leaped for the throat the groom cried out, "My God!" and
staggered backward. He dropped the whip and shielded his throat
with his arms. In consequence, his forearm was ripped open to the
bone.

The man was badly frightened. It was not so much White Fang's
ferocity as it was his silence that unnerved the groom. Still
protecting his throat and face with his torn and bleeding arm, he
tried to retreat to the barn. And it would have gone hard with him
had not Collie appeared on the scene. As she had saved Dick's
life, she now saved the groom's. She rushed upon White Fang in
frenzied wrath. She had been right. She had known better than the
blundering gods. All her suspicions were justified. Here was the
ancient marauder up to his old tricks again.

The groom escaped into the stables, and White Fang backed away
before Collie's wicked teeth, or presented his shoulder to them and
circled round and round. But Collie did not give over, as was her
wont, after a decent interval of chastisement. On the contrary,
she grew more excited and angry every moment, until, in the end,
White Fang flung dignity to the winds and frankly fled away from
her across the fields.

"He'll learn to leave chickens alone," the master said. "But I
can't give him the lesson until I catch him in the act."

Two nights later came the act, but on a more generous scale than
the master had anticipated. White Fang had observed closely the
chicken-yards and the habits of the chickens. In the night-time,
after they had gone to roost, he climbed to the top of a pile of
newly hauled lumber. From there he gained the roof of a chicken-
house, passed over the ridgepole and dropped to the ground inside.
A moment later he was inside the house, and the slaughter began.

In the morning, when the master came out on to the porch, fifty
white Leghorn hens, laid out in a row by the groom, greeted his
eyes. He whistled to himself, softly, first with surprise, and
then, at the end, with admiration. His eyes were likewise greeted
by White Fang, but about the latter there were no signs of shame
nor guilt. He carried himself with pride, as though, forsooth, he
had achieved a deed praiseworthy and meritorious. There was about
him no consciousness of sin. The master's lips tightened as he
faced the disagreeable task. Then he talked harshly to the
unwitting culprit, and in his voice there was nothing but godlike
wrath. Also, he held White Fang's nose down to the slain hens, and
at the same time cuffed him soundly.

White Fang never raided a chicken-roost again. It was against the
law, and he had learned it. Then the master took him into the
chicken-yards. White Fang's natural impulse, when he saw the live
food fluttering about him and under his very nose, was to spring
upon it. He obeyed the impulse, but was checked by the master's
voice. They continued in the yards for half an hour. Time and
again the impulse surged over White Fang, and each time, as he
yielded to it, he was checked by the master's voice. Thus it was
he learned the law, and ere he left the domain of the chickens, he
had learned to ignore their existence.

"You can never cure a chicken-killer." Judge Scott shook his head
sadly at luncheon table, when his son narrated the lesson he had
given White Fang. "Once they've got the habit and the taste of
blood . . ." Again he shook his head sadly.

But Weedon Scott did not agree with his father. "I'll tell you
what I'll do," he challenged finally. "I'll lock White Fang in
with the chickens all afternoon."

"But think of the chickens," objected the judge.

"And furthermore," the son went on, "for every chicken he kills,
I'll pay you one dollar gold coin of the realm."

"But you should penalise father, too," interpose Beth.

Her sister seconded her, and a chorus of approval arose from around
the table. Judge Scott nodded his head in agreement.

"All right." Weedon Scott pondered for a moment. "And if, at the
end of the afternoon White Fang hasn't harmed a chicken, for every
ten minutes of the time he has spent in the yard, you will have to
say to him, gravely and with deliberation, just as if you were
sitting on the bench and solemnly passing judgment, 'White Fang,
you are smarter than I thought.'"

From hidden points of vantage the family watched the performance.
But it was a fizzle. Locked in the yard and there deserted by the
master, White Fang lay down and went to sleep. Once he got up and
walked over to the trough for a drink of water. The chickens he
calmly ignored. So far as he was concerned they did not exist. At
four o'clock he executed a running jump, gained the roof of the
chicken-house and leaped to the ground outside, whence he sauntered
gravely to the house. He had learned the law. And on the porch,
before the delighted family, Judge Scott, face to face with White
Fang, said slowly and solemnly, sixteen times, "White Fang, you are
smarter than I thought."

But it was the multiplicity of laws that befuddled White Fang and
often brought him into disgrace. He had to learn that he must not
touch the chickens that belonged to other gods. Then there were
cats, and rabbits, and turkeys; all these he must let alone. In
fact, when he had but partly learned the law, his impression was
that he must leave all live things alone. Out in the back-pasture,
a quail could flutter up under his nose unharmed. All tense and
trembling with eagerness and desire, he mastered his instinct and
stood still. He was obeying the will of the gods.

And then, one day, again out in the back-pasture, he saw Dick start
a jackrabbit and run it. The master himself was looking on and did
not interfere. Nay, he encouraged White Fang to join in the chase.
And thus he learned that there was no taboo on jackrabbits. In the
end he worked out the complete law. Between him and all domestic
animals there must be no hostilities. If not amity, at least
neutrality must obtain. But the other animals - the squirrels, and
quail, and cottontails, were creatures of the Wild who had never
yielded allegiance to man. They were the lawful prey of any dog.
It was only the tame that the gods protected, and between the tame
deadly strife was not permitted. The gods held the power of life
and death over their subjects, and the gods were jealous of their
power.

Life was complex in the Santa Clara Valley after the simplicities
of the Northland. And the chief thing demanded by these
intricacies of civilisation was control, restraint - a poise of
self that was as delicate as the fluttering of gossamer wings and
at the same time as rigid as steel. Life had a thousand faces, and
White Fang found he must meet them all - thus, when he went to
town, in to San Jose, running behind the carriage or loafing about
the streets when the carriage stopped. Life flowed past him, deep
and wide and varied, continually impinging upon his senses,
demanding of him instant and endless adjustments and
correspondences, and compelling him, almost always, to suppress his
natural impulses.

There were butcher-shops where meat hung within reach. This meat
he must not touch. There were cats at the houses the master
visited that must be let alone. And there were dogs everywhere
that snarled at him and that he must not attack. And then, on the
crowded sidewalks there were persons innumerable whose attention he
attracted. They would stop and look at him, point him out to one
another, examine him, talk of him, and, worst of all, pat him. And
these perilous contacts from all these strange hands he must
endure. Yet this endurance he achieved. Furthermore, he got over
being awkward and self-conscious. In a lofty way he received the
attentions of the multitudes of strange gods. With condescension
he accepted their condescension. On the other hand, there was
something about him that prevented great familiarity. They patted
him on the head and passed on, contented and pleased with their own
daring.

But it was not all easy for White Fang. Running behind the
carriage in the outskirts of San Jose, he encountered certain small
boys who made a practice of flinging stones at him. Yet he knew
that it was not permitted him to pursue and drag them down. Here
he was compelled to violate his instinct of self-preservation, and
violate it he did, for he was becoming tame and qualifying himself
for civilisation.

Nevertheless, White Fang was not quite satisfied with the
arrangement. He had no abstract ideas about justice and fair play.
But there is a certain sense of equity that resides in life, and it
was this sense in him that resented the unfairness of his being
permitted no defence against the stone-throwers. He forgot that in
the covenant entered into between him and the gods they were
pledged to care for him and defend him. But one day the master
sprang from the carriage, whip in hand, and gave the stone-throwers
a thrashing. After that they threw stones no more, and White Fang
understood and was satisfied.

One other experience of similar nature was his. On the way to
town, hanging around the saloon at the cross-roads, were three dogs
that made a practice of rushing out upon him when he went by.
Knowing his deadly method of fighting, the master had never ceased
impressing upon White Fang the law that he must not fight. As a
result, having learned the lesson well, White Fang was hard put
whenever he passed the cross-roads saloon. After the first rush,
each time, his snarl kept the three dogs at a distance but they
trailed along behind, yelping and bickering and insulting him.
This endured for some time. The men at the saloon even urged the
dogs on to attack White Fang. One day they openly sicked the dogs
on him. The master stopped the carriage.

"Go to it," he said to White Fang.

But White Fang could not believe. He looked at the master, and he
looked at the dogs. Then he looked back eagerly and questioningly
at the master.

The master nodded his head. "Go to them, old fellow. Eat them
up."

White Fang no longer hesitated. He turned and leaped silently
among his enemies. All three faced him. There was a great
snarling and growling, a clashing of teeth and a flurry of bodies.
The dust of the road arose in a cloud and screened the battle. But
at the end of several minutes two dogs were struggling in the dirt
and the third was in full flight. He leaped a ditch, went through
a rail fence, and fled across a field. White Fang followed,
sliding over the ground in wolf fashion and with wolf speed,
swiftly and without noise, and in the centre of the field he
dragged down and slew the dog.

With this triple killing his main troubles with dogs ceased. The
word went up and down the valley, and men saw to it that their dogs
did not molest the Fighting Wolf.